Best 12 Gauge Slugs
Rifled vs. sabot slugs, and matching them to your barrel for deer and big-bore accuracy.
The Bottom Line
Shotgun slugs turn a 12 gauge into a short-range big-game gun, and the key is matching the slug to your barrel. Rifled (Foster) slugs are designed to be fired through a smoothbore barrel and are the budget, general-purpose choice for deer inside ~75–100 yards. Sabot slugs are designed for rifled shotgun barrels, where they can deliver rifle-like accuracy out to 150–200 yards — but fired through the wrong barrel type, accuracy suffers badly.
For a smoothbore home-defense or field shotgun, stick with quality rifled slugs (Federal, Remington, Brenneke are popular). For a dedicated slug gun with a rifled barrel, premium sabots like Hornady SST or Federal Trophy Copper unlock the range and precision. Either way, sight in with the exact slug you'll hunt — point of impact varies a lot between loads — and know slugs over-penetrate badly indoors, so they're a hunting and brush-gun choice, not a home-defense load.